Cablecard PQ better than straight coax on Panny PDP. Why?

If you lived in my area, I could answer your question for you. In my area Comcast is simulcasting all of the normal analog channels in digital as well. Both my Panasonic Plasma and Toshiba DLP "favor" the analog channels until a CableCARD is installed. When I install CableCARDs in both of my TV's they ignore the analog channels and map to the simulcasted digital channels.


This is nice for ease of use and mapping the digital channels to familiar locations. The main problems with CableCARDs are well documented; no Video on Demand and no on screen guides unless your TV has the TV Guide system built. A less noted problem with the current generation of CableCARDs is they are single data stream meaning features such as dual tuner picture in picture becomes useless. You need an outside source for PIP.

I would say your guess is correct. With the CableCard you are getting the digital simulcast and without it you are getting the analog channel.

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I think you guys are right, but what's strange is I don't subscribe to digital cable. I just have the cheapest standard cable through TWC and the HD package. Perhaps my CC is decoding the digital signal even though I don't subscribe to digital. This little point has always confused me - I must have digital cable to get HD, but I don't subscribe to the digital package. My understanding is I should be getting analog SD and digital HD. But apparently when you get a CC the digital signal for all channels is decoded.

"Perhaps my CC is decoding the digital signal even though I don't subscribe to digital. "


Correct.


"This little point has always confused me - I must have digital cable to get HD, but I don't subscribe to the digital package."


Digital cable is a great misnomer. All it ever meant was taking inherently analog broadcasts and digitizing them with MPEG to let them squeeze you more channels in the same bandwidth. On bad analog cable systems, picture quality tends to improve. On good ones, it tends to decline.

I hate to say this but, SD looks worse with a CableCARD (on my 50PX50U at least) then with a SA8300. For SD my PDP supports only 480i w/CableCARD but the SA8300 can be set to 480p.

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Then that is a fault with the display, not the CableCARD (or you have an older display without SD scaling designed-in). Most HD-builtin/HD-ready displays (and every DCR-builtin display I know of) includes a scaler for SD (is it possible you have it turned off?). Even my entry-level Philips 42PF7320A (model being discontinued) supports SD scaling (minimum scaling, which is where I have it set to currently, scales SD to 480p). 480i is *no* scaling at all (nothing is being done @ 480i, which is a standard SD display).

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How??? I have an SA8300 HD and was unable to change it from 1080i.

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Wow Op, your experience certainly differs from mine. We have practically identical setups, though I have a 42" Panny. My 8300 looks much worse on SD than the CC - it's as though it must do an MPEG encode on the stream before displaying it, even when watching live. Regardless of resolution settings or connections, the CC wins hands down in my experience. The 8300 puts out noisy SD with a bad red push (worse on some outputs) in my case. That's the one reason I keep the CC around.

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Wow, what a great paragraph for thought. My extended family has been having arguments about the meaning of "digital cable" for years. Thank you rogo!